Historic Show and Long View

On Saturday we slept in, had breakfast at the hotel. Our plans were to go to the Pompidou Center to see an historic show, elles@centrepompidou. For the first time in the world, a museum is displaying the feminine side of its own collections. This exhibit is entirely works of women artists from the 20th century to the present day. These artists were instrumental in the effort to have women’s art work taken seriously and to establish a female voice different from the traditional male voice, but not less than the traditional male voice. I studied this body of work while in graduate school and needless to say these women are my heroes. I was so excited to see this historic exhibit.

It seemed an easy task to get to the Pompidou center when we looked at the metro map, but what seemed so simple in two dimensions turned into a traumatic adventure in reality. In two dimensions all we had to do was go up the B line to the Chatelet des Halles metro stop. The diagram did show several train connections at this point. What it didn’t show was that the stop was below a three or four story mall which from the out side looked very much like the Pompidou Center. We emerged from the train and wandered for what seemed like forever to find our way out of the labyrinth. The words of an old Kingston Trio song started running through my mind with new words

“Well, did they ever return? No, they never

returned and their fate is still unknown.

They may ride forever 'neath the streets of

Paris. They’re the folks who never returned.”

We finally emerged like ground hogs from beneath the earth, only to find ourselves in a huge park which apparently ran connected the mall and the Pompidou Center. Our problems were not over. There were no street signs that showed up on our street maps, only names of paths, but we didn’t know where they went. We finally found a street, oriented ourselves and found the Pompidou Center. It was worth the effort. We were surprised at the size of the show. It took up most of one whole floor. I was in heaven. It was like visiting old friends, including the Gorilla Girls, who are known for dressing in Gorilla costumes and performing comical yet serious protests at museums over the lack of inclusion of works by women. There were some works and artists I was not familiar with so I got to make new friends. We both thoroughly enjoyed the show.

In front of the Pompidou center is a large sloping cement plaza where people gather to rest and take refreshment while watching all manner of street artists. We wandered through the plaza, and as though we were both reluctant to tackle the underground maze we did some window shopping. I found a wonderful multi striped colorful sweatshirt. I never shop when traveling, but this had to be an exception. When we ran out of excuses we returned to the dark underground. And of course we got lost again and it took us some time to find our train, but we were eventually successful. After this trauma we had to go back to the hotel and rest.

That evening we had decided to go to the Tour (Tower) in Montparnasse, which was recommended by the couple we met on the river cruise. It’s on the top, like the seventieth floor of an office building. We were advised to be there at dusk because it has a tremendous view of Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, without the long lines. So we left our hotel about 19:30 (7:30 pm) figuring dusk is at 22:00 (10 pm) and went in search of a restaurant, La Coupole Restaurant Brasserie that was recommended by our travel book. It was wonderful, a large room decorated colorfully with columns throughout the room all decorated differently. Seating is close and we were seated at a table for two between two tables with families of four. One family had two boys and one with a boy and a girl. They were very concerned about their children bothering us, but all the children were well behaved and were delighted with the Burly Bear who had accompanied us to dinner.

The dinner was wonderful with real French waiters all dressed up in black jackets, white shirts and black ties hustling around to make our meal as peasant as possible. I had chateaubriand and it was delicious. I was so sad I could only eat half of it due to doctor’s orders to eat small amounts. The dinner took longer than we expected and by the time we got out of the restaurant it was dark. We went to the Tower anyway, took the elevator to the top, climbed a few stairs and came out on the roof top to a chilly wind, but an absolutely breath taking view of Paris lights, including a lighted Eiffel Tower and Champs de Elysees. We only stayed out for a little bit, and then went down the stairs to an enclosed viewing area with maps and descriptions of what we were viewing.

Then we headed down and out to search for a metro station to return to the hotel where we called it a night.